


all the better to see you with

by JazzRaft



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 10:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14518359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JazzRaft/pseuds/JazzRaft
Summary: He’s read the safety book for when he comes across an animal in the woods, and he carries out all the proper protocol to get him out of this safely, but this wild dog is so persistent and curious and it seems more prudent for Ignis to pet him rather than ignore him. And that’s how he accidentally caught a werewolf without knowing it.





	all the better to see you with

**Author's Note:**

> for an anon who was interested in an extension off of a little ask game (who is the hunter, and who is the wolf). enjoy!

Ignis was not a huge fan of nature.

So when his therapist told him that he needed to get out more, he nearly threw his coffee in his face.

He didn’t hate nature in a pro deforestation, anti-activism, “animals don’t have rights” sort of way; no, hardly like that! Just in an “art imitates life so why not admire it in a museum” sort of way. They were air conditioned and everything!

The closest Ignis had any desire to getting to the great outdoors was through art prints and computer screens. _Someone_ had to support the nature photography profession, after all. And his day-to-day routine didn’t exactly encourage him to be one with nature. That suited him just fine.

“ _Not fine_ ” – or so Dr. Fleuret insisted. But what the hell did he know? From one pasty white Northerner to another, he didn’t exactly strike Ignis as the roughing it and toughing it type, either.

Ignis liked order. He liked knowing what was expected of him, and fulfilling those expectations in an environment where he knew what to expect himself. He liked his little utilitarian apartment at the heart of the city, neat and organized and smartly furnished with all the necessities he’d ever need to survive a comfortable, inner-city existence. He liked stopping in at the commercial coffee chain down the first block on his way to work every morning, and exchanging hollow pleasantries with the barista trying to make leaf art in his take-away order (there, a representation of nature in his daily coffee; he was set).

He liked his job the most. It was mundane and methodical, and the subtle demands of the office were enough of a challenge to keep him from feeling stagnant. His colleagues were competent enough so as not to drive him into bemoaning their very existence at the company water cooler, his pay was good, and he never felt like his work went unappreciated.

Yes, he enjoyed his perfectly complacent existence.

“Not enough, you don’t,” Dr. Fleuret had huffed.

It was only a _minor_ mental breakdown. (Yes, there was such a thing as a minor one, he didn’t care _what_ Fleuret said – PhD be damned.)

_One. Little._ Disagreement with the IT department. Just a marginally louder than average, two minute longer than what might have been necessary, overly hand gesture friendly criticism of tech support inefficiency that everyone _knew_ , but nobody ever _said._

It was hard not to take the work-enforced condemnation to a psychological diagnosis personally.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Dr. Fleuret had assured him in the most un-assuring tone of bare disinterest in his overall well-being Ignis had ever heard. “You’re stressed. You’re stretching yourself too thin at work and not giving time enough to take care of yourself. I’m prescribing you a vacation.”

Thus, Ignis’s mid-autumn excursion through the great Duscaen wilds began.

“I fail to understand the greatness of tick bites and garula scat,” Ignis grumbled under his breath, pancaking a mosquito from sucking the blood out of his neck.

If he could attribute even the vaguest semblance of psychological genius behind Fleuret’s prescription, it was that the whole ridiculous endeavor was giving Ignis a new and intimate understanding of anger management practices.

Yes, yes, Duscae was as pretty as any picture he’d ever Moogle searched for a scenic screensaver. It was bright and lush and full of life. The only problem was that it was also _bright_ and _lush_ and _full of life._

The sun-glare alone, blaring through his window on the bus ride in, should have been his first hint at the tiny horrors which were destined to plague him on what was supposed to be a “relaxing sabbatical.” The air was damp and smelled of mildew and felt heavier than he might have hoped for on an autumn afternoon. Bugs and pests and beasts of all sorts swarmed the plains, and Ignis had half a mind to call up his therapist and accuse him of sending him off on a suicidal safari survival trip.

But the trails were safe and – grudging though he was to admit it – they _were_ prettier in person. And after his first failed excursion slopping through muck and being accosted by the miniscule devils of the marshes, he set forth better equipped the next day and had an easier time navigating the woods.

He didn’t think red was necessarily his color – or plaid, for that matter – but it was the best the trading outpost had to offer in terms of light-weight apparel. He got himself some hardy boots, a practical vest with lots of zipper compartments, and remembered to pull on the oldest pair of jeans he’d packed so as to avoid heartbreak when they’d inevitably fall victim to some errant outdoor stain or another.

He let his hair down because that’s what he’d heard other backpackers tease to each other, and he tucked his glasses in his new vest to avoid an expensive replacement should he reach up to smack a fly and swat the specs right off of his face. He walked at a decent pace, breathed at an even rate, tried to be “mindful of his surroundings,” tried to look more at the changing leaves than the lens of his camera-phone.

But while it was an overall better experience… He still didn’t quite _get it_.

His thoughts were hectic and tense, and he looked at the path without really seeing it. There was so much he was missing at home, so much work he would need to catch up on when he got back, so much he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to defend himself from within the office gossip ring.

Ignis tapped the back of his phone in his pocket. Service was practically nonexistent out on the trails, and he had a feeling that was one of the many ulterior motives Fleuret had planned for when sending him out.

He needed to unplug and reset. Lots of people did. And lots more people knew that was easier said than done.

When Ignis next looked up to huff over his predicament and how much the whole situation ashamed him, he stopped short, and tried not to panic. Because he suddenly realized, with acute terror, that he had no idea where in the blazes he was.

And that he was not alone on the unfamiliar trail.

A big, black dog sat in the middle of the path, a shadow across the strewn-about orange leaves. It wasn’t one of the spindly beasts Ignis had been warned about in the wildlife safety brief – the ones that prowled the plains in packs and snatched up lost travelers between the dense pines nearer to the lakes.

No, this beast was larger, with more defined musculature and thick fur. It had long, tufted ears and a narrow snout, the color of its fur immaculately black. It had a long, shaggy tail and big paws, and as it got up off its haunches and shook the leaves from its fur and trotted closer to him, Ignis noticed it had the most striking blue eyes, unlike anything he’d ever seen in a wild animal before. Granted, he was hardly the leading expert in the ocular study of canine what-have-you and oh dear gods, it was _coming closer._

Now, Ignis was a quick study, and following instructions came second-nature to him. He’d paid special attention to the warnings and advisories, and had run plenty of mental scenarios before braving the wilds to feel like he was more than prepared to handle an emergency should one befall him.

But theory and practice were two entirely different beasts, and so was this creature padding up to him.

In the middle of nowhere.

With no other hikers in sight.

If a man falls in the forest and no one hears him screaming as he’s being mauled to death by a rabid animal, does he make a sound?

Ignis stayed very still, afraid to alarm the creature into attacking if he made even the slightest movement. It was too late to back away slowly with his head down, and make himself as non-threatening as possible like he remembered he was supposed to do.

_This should not be happening,_ he thought. He didn’t bring any food with him that might attract a hungry animal – just a fairly tasteless energy bar that he’d finished off about a mile back. He hadn’t approached the animal or followed it or harassed it for a snapshot – he was _not_ dying for a damn selfie, who in their right mind would _do that_?

Instead, the animal was approaching _him_ , which, by all wildlife ranger accounts, should never be the case if he’d followed all of the above. Not unless it was rabid. Or afflicted with some other malignant disease that would doom the animal to death – but not before it took Ignis down with it.

A wet, black nose twitched along the hem of his shirt, probing at the plaid pattern, but never touching it. Ignis could feel the heat of its breath, nevertheless. He could feel the cold sweat on the back of his neck too, warning him of his impending demise should he not figure out a way to escape.

The dog circled around him and sniffed, like Ignis was a fine aged wine. Or a delectably seasoned steak.

Just as Ignis was despairing over all his unfinished business and vowing eternal damnation on Dr. Fleuret for condemning him to his death, the dog barked, just like any other domestic neighborhood pet, wagged its tail, and grinned – and showed Ignis its matching set of sharp teeth.

The behavior confounded him. Was it a lost pet, then? Was it not an indigenous carnivore honed in on his tasty flesh after all? It was becoming increasingly difficult to convince himself that he was face to face with a feral beast when it looked at him with such open-eyed, tongue-lolled curiosity like that.

Ignis tried not to fall for it. He tried to remember that, friendly though it may be, this was still a wild animal. He couldn’t let his guard down. But he couldn’t exactly shoo it away like a household poodle, either.

“Right, then. Um… I must be going now.”

He wasn’t sure why he was talking to the animal like it was capable of verbal communication. The creature merely gazed up at him, unresponsive and panting, tail sweeping dead leaves from the trail. It almost looked like it was waiting for something. Ignis hoped it wasn’t expecting a treat – especially not one made of his fingers.

He side-stepped around the steady swish of its tail, trying to be careful with his movements like all the tips said he should be. But the dog didn’t seem to care if he moved as slow as a snail or ran as fast as a chocobo. As Ignis turned to retreat back the way he came, the creature matched his pace and loped alongside him.

“No, no,” Ignis tried, hesitant to hold out a hand, lest he ask for it to be chomped off. “As much as I appreciate the escort, I can find my way back just fine on my own, thank you.”

The animal said nothing – because of course it wouldn’t, Ignis had no idea why he thought he should expect some form of response. It merely stood there and smiled, ears flicking every which way to catch sound that Ignis had no hope of hearing.

He started walking again and, like the damn thing was magnetized to him, the dog started walking too.

Ignis did not know what in the Six’s holy heavens to make of this. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the shaggy creature, nor his own ceaseless confusion about the matter.  Why was it following him if not to eat him? And if it wanted to eat him, why not have done it already? Why wag its tail and smile and show no signs of aggression to the contrary? Why follow him back to what he hoped was civilization?

Ignis spent the entire hike back to the main trail – which he had been much further off from than he had ever realized – with a shaking heartbeat and one eye always on his right, watching his four-legged shadow pad silently across the autumn leaves beside him.

It was the longest walk of his life. He half-expected the dog to walk all the way back to the motel with him. He expected a lot of lifted-brow looks and shrill screams from every corner of the reception area. He expected black riot trucks of animal control cruisers at his doorstep and a sunken-eyed small-town reporter interjecting overly intense adjectives into his “harrowing” account to be broadcast for fifteen minutes on the late night news slot.

He expected a lot of worst-case scenarios.

So when the dog finally stopped walking next to him at the first trail marker, Ignis’s relief wholly eclipsed his curiosity over what finally inspired the creature to stop. For a few steps further, Ignis didn’t really believe it was going to stay where it stood. He kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting it to suddenly remember where it was going, and continue stalking him all the way home. But the dog just stood there, wagging its tail in a rhythmic arc.

It barked once at him, then turned on its haunches, and bounded back into the woods.

“Bye to you too,” Ignis muttered, completely bewildered.

* * *

This damnable dog had no regard whatsoever for the sanctity of personal space.

The day following his first encounter, Ignis got lost again – there were paths that very clearly _looked_ like _paths,_ as in _places people can walk_ , with no signs whatsoever indicating that he _shouldn’t;_ if a park ranger ever accused him of endangering himself by disregarding the weathered trail markers that looked like more bark than paint on the trees, Ignis would have a word – or five – to say about _that_.

The dog found him again while he was trying to find his way back. And it was just as eager to escort him back to the main trail as it was the day before. Ignis was greeted with a warm, low bark, a wagging tail, and a toothy grin. They spent the walk back with a one-sided conversation of Ignis trying to make the creature understand that he was not in need of a service animal to guide him.

The next day was much of the same, though Ignis’s rambling condemnations eventually ended on him venting about his more universal frustrations than the immediate annoyance of a wild dog attaching itself to his hip.

The day after that, he tried to scare the dog off with a stick, which only served to excite the creature rather than intimidate it. Ignis didn’t know why he was so surprised when he threw the stick one way, made a run for it the other, and found it in the dog’s teeth at the end of the trail, waiting for him.

Eventually, he just learned to live with it. Clearly, the animal didn’t view him as either prey or predator. If anything, it was treating him more like one of the pack. While that notion called up plenty more concerns that Ignis wasn’t prepared to deal with, it was a far less frightening idea than being stalked for dinner.

He still tended to talk to the creature, even though he knew it wasn’t going to talk back. In a way, Ignis almost preferred it. His furry companion didn’t judge him on his grievances, didn’t offer up advice that Ignis had no intention of taking, didn’t try to talk him into a solution he knew would get him nowhere; it just listened. Or, well, he liked to think that it did.

After his first week of open-air solitary confinement and the start of the companionable walks in the woods, it was the first day since he’d stumbled across the dog that it didn’t come to meet Ignis. Not that an animal held time on the same schedule as a human being, but Ignis just assumed it to be running late. Might have gotten distracted with a squirrel or something. Might be doing anything a wild animal might do out in the wild.

But as the shadows started growing long and park closing crawled ever closer, his quiet, fluffy ear didn’t find him. Ignis wasn’t quite sure why that… stung.

He didn’t see the creature the next day, either. Rather than feel jilted or abandoned or ignored, Ignis just started to feel worried. Hunting season was just drawing to a close, and while the park had a policy against it to ensure the safety of its hikers and preserve the natural beauty of the landscapes, little such safeties or respects could be offered to four-legged friends that were not bound by park fences.

Ignis wasn’t sure what to do. He had his phone in his hand in the motel room that afternoon, staring at the waiting Moogle search engine. As if the world wide web was going to find him one black dog in all the forests of Duscae. He couldn’t exactly put up “lost dog” flyers on every tree in the park. It wasn’t like it was his _pet_.

Ignis clicked the phone closed and tossed it on the nightstand, rubbing the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. He was just going to have to let it go. He was just being foolish about the whole thing. Ravus was right, he really did need to get out more. He’d made faster friends with a feral dog than he ever did with another person.

Maybe this was all just supposed to be Fleuret’s indirect way of teaching him a lesson.

* * *

He decided that the next day would be his last on the hiking trails. He’d explored all that he could explore of them, and Duscae was much bigger than a single park. There were some nature tours closer to the lake and a chocobo outpost offering rides up to the famous arches that he could take. More group activities might be better for him than the lone treks through the woods. He was sure his therapist would be thrilled with that initiative.

When he reached the trails that he now knew were not intended for visitors, he hesitated. Was it worth the risk to get himself lost on his last day through the woods without the better directional skills of his four-legged companion? Was he really so desperate for company that he thought he’d never do better than a mere animal? When on Eos did he ever get to be this _sad_?

Feeling embarrassed by himself, Ignis turned away from the unmarked trails and made to head back home. Time to make some human friends.

“You lost, buddy?”

The voice startled him, and Ignis refused to feel shame for the barely audible squeak of surprise which unmanned him in response. It was a perfectly acceptable reaction, given the unlikelihood of his meeting another human soul this far off the regulated trails.

The stranger at least had the decency to _try_ not to laugh. Spared most of Ignis’s dignity. The rest of it died with the dry-mouthed gaping of a fifteen-year-old school-boy when his words failed to make themselves into a reply.

He’d never seen the man before. He would have recognized him, Ignis was entirely certain of that. Jet-black hair and eyes like sapphires set in fair skin, as if his genetics were designed to complement the brilliance of his stare. He was dressed in dark, fall clothes, slim black jeans accentuating a slim, lean figure. He came out of the fall foliage like a late day shadow, with a smile as soft as the ailing autumn light.

“Sorry,” Ignis remembered to say, apologizing for trespassing where he knew he shouldn’t be, apologizing for the embarrassing fright the stranger had given him, and apologizing for his generally flustered state of existence in front of one of the more attractive hikers he’d seen since his stay started. “I was just turning around, actually.”

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” the man said – his voice was as soothing and mysterious as nighttime. “Wolves wander around here, y’know.”

“Wolves?”

The stranger turned his striking blue eyes on him, a secretive grin turning up his lips. Ignis caught the flash of his white teeth just beneath the smile. “Haven’t heard the stories, have you? Folk around here have tons of superstitions about these woods.”

Ignis couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “I’m honestly not one for folklore.”

“Ah. Seeing is believing, that it?”

Ignis shrugged. The only thing he could even remotely attribute to the supernatural was how ethereally beautiful the man was. The stranger tilted his head to the side, hair falling in his eyes as he looked back at Ignis, smiling like he was waiting for something. Maybe for Ignis to realize that he was openly admiring him instead of answering his question.

“Err, I suppose so,” he mumbled, forcing his eyes down to his feet and willing them to take him back to the start of the trails. “Forgive me, I really must be going. It’s getting rather late.”

“Sure! I’ll come with you.”

“Oh…”

“Never been this way before. Show me the way?”

The man was already walking, hands in his pockets and eyes up in the trees, admiring the end of the day. Ignis could hardly tell him to walk on without him. Though it wasn’t as if he really wanted to. He’d been missing the company, after all, and he couldn’t do worse than an attractive stranger with a quiet smile.

“I’m Noct, by the way,” he said when Ignis caught up to him, making an effort to match the man’s smaller, slightly stilted stride.

“Ignis.”

The silence was inevitable, as always with first meetings. In it, it occurred to Ignis that it had yet to cross his mind to ask Noct about his missing canine companion. “You mentioned wolves in the forest?” he asked, carefully.

“Oh, yeah. Really old story. The trails back there have been wolf territory for hundreds of years. Legend has it there used to be a war between man and wolf, and it only ended when they agreed to certain borders that neither side were allowed to pass without forfeiting their lives to the other. Any man who walked into wolf territory was fair game for the pack to hunt, and vice versa. Old world, tribe-honored stuff.”

Ignis snorted. “I didn’t realize wolves were such dogged negotiators.”

Noct was quick to laugh at that. Which made Ignis smile. It was nice to have someone that appreciated horrible puns.

* * *

His full name was Noctis, and he’d lived in Duscae all his life. He didn’t talk much about his family or his circumstances in living there, and Ignis didn’t expect him to. Ignis told him he lived in the city and that he was on “vacation.” He was still too embarrassed about his own circumstances to air out the particulars.

Mentioning that his stay in Duscae was merely temporary seemed to sadden Noctis. And as the days passed with Noctis greeting him at the start of every trail, Ignis was hard-pressed not to feel a little broody about his pending departure, too.

He’d liked Noct since he met him. Attractiveness aside, he’d laughed easy, he’d charmed him with every word, and he’d made a wholly disappointing last day in the woods a much better one. Ignis hadn’t thought too much about his missing wolf since, accepting that it had wandered back to its wild routes and moved on. Noctis had brought him back to the trails, nevertheless, with knowledge of twisted pathways through the forests that only he seemed to know were there.

“Ever gone fishing?”

“No, never.”

“Good. I can be your first.”

Ignis was getting a little bit better at controlling the temperature of his face around Noct, but only a little. He still caught him unawares with sly comments and subtle shifts in the way he walked that brushed his shoulder against Iggy’s for half a mile. Today, he caught him a fish.

Barefoot and with his pants rolled up to his knees, Noctis tip-toed to the edge of a stream Ignis was sure they were not supposed to be walking in. But he was quickly learning that Noctis had little regard for what they were “supposed” to do. Something about that thrilled him in a way Ignis wasn’t expecting.

“You know how to fish bare-handed? I don’t think I’ve met a single soul who does.”

“Even better. Something I can impress you with, then.”

It was Ignis’s chance to laugh, if only for the ridiculousness of Noct thinking he wasn’t already impressed by him without his aquatic feats to boot.

Still, it was quite a feat, watching Noctis stand motionless in the shallows and stare into the clear waters that matched his eyes. The stream-bed was thick with fallen leaves, the water no doubt like ice on his bare skin, but Noct wore an expression of stoic determination as he waited for his chance. When it came, it was one, lightning-quick splash and a howl of victory, and Noctis had a trout wriggling between his palms.

Ignis indulged him with applause. Noct’s eyes were big and bright, his mouth agape in laughter, smile stretched across his face, one sharp canine sharpening his grin.

“Think you can cook this guy over a campfire?”

“I’m better experienced with a kitchen.”

“You smell like one. Good, I mean! You smell good. Like you cook a lot. That’s a good thing.”

Noctis often said oddly endearing things like that. He would catch himself mid-sentence, blue eyes widening a touch and lips pursing, teeth nipping into the bottom as he gnawed on some words to recover. Ignis took mercy on him and let him gnaw on some fire-roasted fish instead.

“You have quite the appetite,” Ignis chuckled as he watched Noctis take to the skewer of cooked meat.

“You’re quite the chef.”

Ignis would hardly call fish on a stick his greatest culinary achievement – it was all in the smoke – but it made Noctis as happy as if he’d served him caviar on a bed of gold leaves.

He was a voracious eater, tearing into the fish as if it was still alive, eyes as big as the dinner plate Ignis didn’t have to serve it with. Between bites, he’d shake some errant droplets of water from his shaggy, dark hair, and when he would catch Ignis’s gaze over the little campfire in the afternoon light, he would smile at him with his strangely sharp teeth and his sparkling blue eyes and…

Ignis nearly threw his fish back into the river.

“It’s you!”

Noctis stared at him over a mouthful of fish, chewing uninterrupted by Ignis’s outburst. He looked entirely unfazed by the realization that had only _just_ dawned on him. Noctis swallowed and smiled and said, “Woof.”

Ignis was rightfully stunned. He could only imagine how comical his face must have looked, frozen in a silent scream of shock and amazement. Once it clicked, he could see the resemblance so clearly. It was almost as if it made sense. But when he thought of how he hadn’t seen it before, how could it _possibly_ make sense?

“You, um, gonna gather the townsfolk with their torches and pitchforks, or are you gonna finish that fish?”

Ignis mutely handed Noctis his half-finished skewer of trout. Noctis beamed excitedly and ravaged it like the animal he was.

“Well,” Ignis huffed. “If my therapist didn’t think I was crazy enough before, he definitely will now.”

Noctis shrugged. “What’s so crazy about what’s right in front of your eyes? And besides, no one else needs to know… right?”

Noctis paused, mouth open over the last bit of meat, suddenly uncertain about the look on Ignis’s face. Ignis was more uncertain himself. All of evolution was reorganizing itself in his head, trying to account for shapeshifting man-beasts hidden in the forests of Duscae. His own psyche was calling itself into question, wondering if he was just inventing this entire scenario and really had a psychotic break when he screamed through that phone.

One thing he didn’t doubt though, was the earnest desire in Noct’s eyes. They’d struck him the first day he’d met him, full of empathy and curiosity and unlike any eyes he’d ever seen before. They were tentative now, looking at him on the verge of mistrust, betrayed by an action Ignis hadn’t taken yet. And he didn’t intend to.

Ignis took a deep, long breath. He tasted the cool, damp air of autumn, the smoke curling from the fire, the impromptu seasoning of the fish. He heard the rustle of the leaves and the trickle of the stream and every conversation he’d had with Noctis in the weeks prior, wolf or not.

He got it now. He didn’t before. The great outdoors hadn’t seemed so great when he’d walked in them alone. It had only been good when Noctis was there.

“You know, if you just wanted dinner, all you needed to do was ask.”

Noctis’s prone face broke back into a smile, eyes lighting up in the sparks off the fire. He finished his fish and moved closer to Ignis on the little log benches set out for picnickers. He tucked his feet beneath him and huddled close, nearly sitting in Ignis’s lap. In hindsight, it couldn’t have been more obvious what he was.

“I liked your outfit,” Noctis told him. “And like I said. You smelled good.”

“But not good enough to eat?”

Noctis lifted a brow and smirked, that one snaggletooth catching from beneath his lip.

“I’m saving you for dessert.”


End file.
